Kiawah Island will provide a very difficult test for the professional golfers that will be in the field next week. European players, especially should find the wind and links style atmosphere around Kiawah to their liking.
Anyone entered may be capable of winning the last major championship of 2012 but in reality only a handful of players are actually contenders.
Luke Donald
He has been ranked No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) for 55 weeks. He has not been taken seriously, however, due to the fact that he has not won a major title.
Donald has a tremendous all-around game and should be suited to perform well at the Ocean Course. After somewhat of a slow start in 2012 he has been playing better of recent and should be a factor on Sunday afternoon.
Lee Westwood
He was ranked No. 1 on the OWGR for 22 weeks in 2009 and has been a star performer in Europe for over 20 years. The talented golfer has an excellent record in major championships but has never quite been able to get a major win.
Westwood is currently ranked No. 4 in the OWGR and is 39 years old. His good buddy Darren Clarke won the 2011 Open Championship when he was 42. Fellow Englishman Colin Montgomerie never won a major.
The time is now for Westwood.
Rory McIlroy
Mcllroy is currently ranked No. 3 in the OWGR. He has been in somewhat of a swoon of recent. Seems that he and women’s tennis professional Caroline Wozniacki are having a love affair and it is definitely affecting Rory’s play of late. All that globe trotting and what not.
Oh to be young, rich, handsome, and in love! Rory has the game and he already has a U. S. Open trophy at home.
Can he get his head out of the clouds long enough to put together four solid rounds at the PGA?
Bubba Watson
As the 2012 Masters Champion, Watson took a month away from competitive golf after the adoption of his son in April. Since his return he had missed cuts at the Memorial and the U. S. Open. He followed those up with a T-2 at the Travelers and a T-23 at the Open Championship.
The truth is just like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates you never know what you will get from Bubba. He is the master of creativity on the golf course. The Ocean Course at Kiawah demands creative thinking and shot making.
It could be Bubba’s kind of place.
Tiger Woods
Woods is ranked No. 2 in the world and has three wins on the PGA Tour in 2012. His career goal is to win more major championships than Jack Nicklaus’ 18.
Woods won 14 of 48 majors from 1997 through 2008 but he has not won one since the U. S. Open at Torrey Pines. Personal problems, swing changes and injuries have prevented him from winning.
Tiger is still somewhat inconsistent at best. He was never a factor in April at the Masters. He played 36 nearly perfect holes at Olympic Club in the U. S. Open and then couldn’t find his game on the weekend.
He was a factor at Royal Lytham in the Open Championship before a triple-bogey on the sixth hole in the final round proved to be his undoing. Tiger is making his way back to contention and has to be the favorite whenever he tees it up.
A few other names to watch next week include: Graeme McDowell, Dustin Johnson, Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose, and Jason Dufner.